Description
Posed frontally in three-quarter view, a majestic image of Saint Peter stares out at the viewer as he holds a book and his attribute, the keys, within an initial ‘Q’. The brilliant reddish-orange and blue coloring of the acanthus border harmonizes beautifully with the alternating bands of the frame and the robe and book held by the saint, whose softer green mantle stands out. Although the choice of a green mantle instead of the traditional yellow mantle for Peter is unusual, the preference is already discernable in an initial ‘S’ from the artist’s earlier Antiphonal in the Archivio Capitolare in Pistoia, formerly in the Church of San Pietro a Vitolini in Vinci (MS A ss.2, f. 206v). The saint’s face, hair, and beard are also remarkably similar in the two works. The present initial with Saint Peter reveals all the characteristics of the late work of the Maestro dello Statuto di 1337, when he has fully assimilated the style of Simone Martini and Pietro Lorenzetti. A large series of more than a dozen fragments from a set of Franciscan Antiphonals, possibly illuminated for the Basilica of San Francesco in Siena, are most likely from the same series. In 2002 and 2013, Gaudenz Freuler first identified this series; the group is presently the subject of a study by Beatrice Alai, who includes our Saint Peter in her recent publication. They date just before his illuminated Statutes, which is confirmed by the initial ‘F’ with the scene of Martyrdom of Sienese Franciscans at Tana (Ceuta) (Milan, Private Collection), an event not known in Siena before 1330 and subsequently depicted by Ambrogio Lorenzetti for the Franciscan convent in Siena in 1331. Alai has identified many of the cuttings from this series in the collection of Johann Anton Ramboux (1790-1866), a painter and conservator, which was sold by Heberle in Cologne in 1868.
The initial ‘Q’ introduced the chant for the first antiphon at Vespers of the Feast of the Apostles Saints Peter and Paul (June 29). The full prayer from the Gospel of Matthew (16:13, 16, and 18) reads “Quem dicunt homines esse Filium hominis? dixit Jesus discipulis suis. Respondens Petrus dixit: Tu es Christus, Filius Dei vivi. Et ego dico tibi qui a tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo Ecclesiam meam” (Whom do men say that the Son of man is, said Jesus to his disciples. Peter answered and said: You are Christ, the Son of the living God. And I say to you, you are Peter and upon this rock I will build my church).
We are grateful to Gaudenz Freuler for his expertise.
provenance
literature
Published:
Alai, Beatrice. “Ritagli inediti del Maestro dello Statuto del 1337 e del Maestro del Graduale I di Montepulciano (e su altri cuttings già in collezione Ramboux del Germanisches Nationalmuseum di Norimberga).” In Aevum 98 (2024): 459–503, no. 33, 465;
Related Literature:
Labriola, Ada, Cristina De Benedictis, and Gaudenz Freuler, eds. La Miniatura senese, 1270–1420. Milan, 2002, 53–67, 291–95.
Freuler, Gaudenz, ed. Italian Miniatures from the Twelfth to the Sixteenth Centuries, 2 vols. Milan, 2013, vol. II, 478–85.
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Maestro dello Statuto di Siena del 1337, Italy, Siena, active c. 1300-1340
Named for a set of Statutes of the Commune of Siena illuminated between 1337 and 1339 (Siena, Archivio di Stato, MS Statuti 26), the painter was one of Siena’s leading illuminators in the decades leading up to the Black Death of 1348. The earliest work associated with him is a collection of the Lives of the Church Fathers (Siena, Bibl. Comunale degli Intronati, MS I. V. 8), dated c. 1300. His early works reveal a knowledge of the art of the Maestro dei Corali di Massa Marittima (c. 1290–1325), alias Memmo di Filippuccio, whose painting preserves the heritage of Duccio. However, his mature style compares well with the Gothic elegance of his famous contemporary Simone Martini (c. 1284–1344), to whom the initial ‘D’ of Christ Blessing introducing the manuscript of the Statutes pays tribute, while it also recognizes the decorative schema and chromatic palette of Pietro Lorenzetti (1280–1348). Many cuttings widely dispersed in collections in Liège (Fig. 1), Nuremberg, Milan, Moscow, Weimar, Stuttgart, and elsewhere come from a series of Antiphonals, dismantled already by the mid-nineteenth century. The Maestro dello Statuto di Siena del 1337 emerges as the most brilliant and vibrant Sienese illuminator before Niccolò di Ser Sozzo, with whom he collaborated toward the end of his career in a series of Choir Books in Empoli. New research suggests that our anonymous artist could possibly be Niccolò’s father, Ser Sozzo di Stefano, whose activity as an illuminator in Siena is documented between the years 1293 and 1321.